To be an Olympic-level entrepreneur, you need to ignore your competition.

In a previous blog I said that Olympic athletes know their competitors. And that is true. Going into the Olympics, they likely know what their opponents are skilled at, what areas they are weak in, and under what conditions the athlete or the opponent has the advantage. That competitive research is true up to the beginning of the event. And then it doesn’t matter after that. During the event, athletes don’t waste time and effort looking around to see if they can see their opponents. During the event they are entirely focused on winning.

Olympic-level entrepreneurs would be wise to follow the same advice: Maintain deep competitive knowledge about the competition and use that to create an advantage – but through the course of the day, the Olympic athlete ignores the competition and focuses on his or her own excellence.